And then he tried to get under center again — during a portion of the workout beyond walk-through, pat-and-go and a pretty intense making-all-the-throws operation of the slot-receiver route tree — using a more sneaky approach.

"You saw that, huh?” Romo said coyly.

"It was pretty obvious that the jersey was a little snug on him,â coach Jason Garrett said when noting that the enthusiastic Romo, trying to take it slow while recovering from back surgery, attempted to don Caleb Hanie’s No. 7 jersey to steal some reps. "Thatâs when I looked and said, âGet him out of the huddle.â

Romo pledges to be ready for the July 22 reporting to camp in Oxnard, complete with a repeat of last year’s pre-camp mountain-running.

"I’m miles ahead of last year,â Romo said of his conditioning. "I donât think theyâre comparable. I think last year I was just starting around this point so this year Iâve had whatever [number of] months to kind of get myself into feeling like I can go. Now itâs going to be more perfecting as opposed to just trying to hammer everything out in four weeks, three weeks.â